Thursday, July 23, 2015

PIONEER - WELL ALMOST - MARGARET TANNER

KANGAROOS HOPPING BY - MARGARET TANNER

I write historical romance, so this experience was very
relevant for me.

My husband and I have just returned from a short stay at a
place called Halls Gap in the Grampians, which is a climber’s paradise. Steep
rocky cliffs overhanging thickly treed valleys. Mile upon mile of brooding
bushland, silent except for the occasional bird call. One could easily get lost
here, and perhaps, as happened in the pioneering days, you would never be seen
again. It still looks like an untamed wilderness even now, except for a couple
of small hamlets. I could almost visualise the pioneers hacking their way
through the heavily treed countryside. The terrain was steep and unforgiving.
In some places a fall meant death.

I have to confess, we stayed in a cabin, which you could
barely discern from the road, it blended into the background so well. It had
all the modern conveniences EXCEPT the heating was an enormous open fire. Hubby
and I looked at each other, who was going to light the fire? Thank goodness
there was a basket of kindling and a pile of neatly stacked logs. Wielding an
axe was beyond us, our pioneering blood was just too dilated.

I am very proud of the fact that I lit the fire at my first
attempt. I wondered if I might not have been a boy scout in a previous life, or
perhaps my pioneering blood wasn’t quite as diluted as I had thought.

It was truly an amazing feeling toasting our toes in front of
this roaring fire, watching the logs burn, and smelling the wood smoke. It
brought back a lot of childhood memories of staying with my grandmother and
various aunts in the country. They not only had open fires for warmth but they
also had wood stoves for cooking. And boy, could they ever cook.

I actually felt quite close to my heroines while I stared
into the orange flames, most of them had to conquer the wilderness with the
hero.

In my novel, Fiery Possession, published by Books We Love,
my heroine, Josephine (Jo) Saunders was an American who braved the wilderness
to help her brother, and immediately clashes with the hero. It is selling for
99 cents at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and in most places that sell e-books.

FIERY POSSESSION

American Wild West versus Australian Frontier. Jo Saunders,
a fiery American beauty, arrives in frontier Australia to save her debt- ridden
brother’s farm. She clashes with her wealthy neighbor, Luke Campton, but
neither of them can deny the attraction sizzling between them.

Hate, lust and murder. How can Jo and Luke overcome these
obstacles and allow love to flourish?